The tale of the potatoes

Last year we received two shipments of potatoes from www.potatogarden.com (who we highly recommend) but both seemed to come to a sad bitter end due to animals. The batch planted in front of the house (including purple viking) where nomed by the neighborhood rabbits (who in turn where delicious, revenge is still best served with potatoes), provided a very small harvest most of which went for seed potatoes for next year. The patch planted in the back of the house grew well but the greens where all eaten by our birds during the hot months and their tale finally ended with the piggies digging them up and eating any spuds that had remained underground after the birds where done. Although we do not know the flavor of the spuds planted in the back, we know the few we where able to eat from the front patch where amazing and far and above beyond the flavor of store spuds.

And here is where their story continues. Rosie was able to plant all of the potatoes today, under the watchful eye of our new task master Ivan (7 months old). We look forward to a good potato year as we hope to mound up the plants properly and get a yield of around 10lbs per plant (that's our hope but we might just end up with more tiny potatoes again). I do hope to purchase more potatoes to plant in the back and hope that with better cover we will have a higher percent of plants survive the chickens, geese and ducks.

A few things we have learned about caring for potato plants;

1) Make sure you mound your plants up routinely.
2) Try not to use companion plants if you are using a raised bed.
3) Good netting, cloth or a plastic cover will do wonders for keeping animals out of your plants.
4) Heirloom potatoes are awesome in flavor and texture.
5) When harvesting your potatoes use your hands as tools can cut and damage your spuds.
6) When planning the next harvest pick the best looking potatoes (no bruising or scars) and set them aside for next years seed potatoes.
7) Never plant your potatoes in the same spot twice, give a plot at least 4 years before you plant potatoes there again. This will virtually eliminate any potato specific diseases from being harbored in your land, learn from the Irish potato famine.